As Natalie Cole graces the holiday issue of AARP Magazine, the magazine for old folks, she looks back on her triumphs, losses and second chances due to her live-saving kidney transplant.

Here are some HIGHlights:

On surgery and losing her sister to lung cancer:
"This was a very joyous moment where I've got new life. It was also a very sorrowful moment, where my sister had gone on, and the family that donated the kidney had lost their daughter as well."

On her greatest loss, sister Cookie:
"My first reaction was that I wished I were back on dialysis to have my sister. These two people had left this earth – and I was here. Why? I feel like I don't deserve it. I've lost some very special people, but Cookie is the toughest. There's a part of me that's missing now. I don't expect that I will ever totally get over it."

On losing hope:
"They told me the average wait for a kidney was three years. At first I thought, 'There goes my
life.'"

On her current state:
"100 percent" healthy. "I didn't know that I could feel this good again."

On gratitude:
"Those angels on my shoulder who've been there all along – now I know that my sister Cookie is one of them."

THIS BROAD HAS MORE drama in her life than Amy Winehouse, whom she was very UN-sympathetic with a few years ago. At Winehouse's darkest times, Cole said Amy didn't deserve awards for her great music, due to her troubled personal life.